


pick ourselves undone

by mutterandmumble



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Anime Spoilers, Anxiety Attacks, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Language, Talking About The Future, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:48:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25416421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mutterandmumble/pseuds/mutterandmumble
Summary: On stopping and starting and stopping and startingOr: Oikawa’s last game as captain of Seijoh, the immediate aftermath, and learning to look ahead
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 4
Kudos: 46





	pick ourselves undone

**Author's Note:**

> cw for an anxiety attack, though it’s mild and never named as such
> 
> Title from flaws by bastille 
> 
> So I can’t believe Haikyuu fucking ENDED like I got into it back in my freshman year of high school and I recently graduated and just ahhaahhahshsb
> 
> Anyways, this one goes out to Oikawa who I didn’t like at first because I looked at him, saw myself, and decided that that was a problem for another day. I’ve grown to like him a lot more since then and with the manga ending I wanted to explore a big turning point in his character. It seemed appropriate too because of all the themes of endings and beginnings and growth that were stirred up by the end of the manga and that sort of characterize Haikyuu as a whole, but I’m not going to get into that because I’ve only got so much space. So for now post last seijoh match angst! Hope you enjoy!!

A fact- a fun one even, if you care about this sort of thing, which Oikawa does because not caring about something feels like a betrayal of himself: The sun is approximately 94.45 million miles from earth. That’s the length of 8,453,389,830 regulation-size volleyball courts lined up from end to end, or else one really, really big volleyball court that’s not regulation-size at  _ all  _ and would probably be a court fit only for giants or kings (as the title of _king_ boils down to making yourself look bigger than you really are, like you’re not a  _ person  _ but rather a  _ giant, _ or else like you’ve gone hiking and found yourself face-to-face with a bear and now have to fake claws or teeth or bulk) or maybe even giant-kings, who he imagines must occupy the space between bluster and genuine skill. 

Oikawa isn’t sure where he falls on that scale, can never quite tell how much of his confidence has its roots in something real and how much is one wrong look from collapsing in on itself, but he does know that the very last match of his high school career feels like it’s played on a court that is big enough to reach the sun, and he knows that he is not a giant or a king or anything in-between because he loses that match. 

He remembers it exactly as it happened: the blow of the whistle, high and sharp, the burn in his legs as he dropped down into position with his breath hitched in his chest from anticipation and the lights blinding-bright. He remembers the blood pounding in his ears and the flick of his eyes all, all around, calculating a series of last-ditch efforts in a snap second. He was digging his claws- the ones steeped in desperation, best used for fighting bears- into his last strand of hope, clinging to the belief that these things turn out all right sometimes _ , _ so maybe he could still turn it around, could still put Karasuno in their place and quell the storm system brewing in his stomach. 

There he was, with his eyes that fit right in his head and his bones that fit right in his body, fingers cracked with effort and what confidence he had left giving out on him. Tobio-chan was across from him, face broken by the lines of the net, but Oikawa couldn’t see him in any way that mattered. He was living inside the roar of the crowd and the blur of the gym, the pitter-patter of his heart racing up his throat and the buzz of impending failure, which was creeping in sparks up his spine and making a home of his head. Working itself into his insides, right alongside all the little things that comprise a moment and all the little moments that took him by the hand and guided him right to where he was right there and then.

The match was right down at the wire, worn thin enough to break, so Oikawa had tossed to Iwaizumi because he couldn’t imagine ending things any other way. And it  _ felt  _ like an end; it felt like  _ the  _ end, the end of an era or an age or at the very least one of the few things that he knew how to navigate with (only somewhat fake) confidence. He felt the ball against his fingertips- and oh how that  _ hurt _ , how it sent pain lancing through his hands and his muscles and his arms and his legs and- and he pushed it up and away with all of his might, watched as it lost color and melted into a silhouette against the gym lights, wreathed in light like a sun that he couldn’t touch and couldn’t feel and couldn’t see, not in time, not soon enough to make a difference.

The rest was out of his hands. Iwaizumi hit the ball and then the ball hit the floor but it hit the floor on the wrong side and then it went  _ thump, thump, thump  _ past Oikawa’s foot, and that was that. They lost and then they petered out, one by one off the court and to the locker room and then from the locker room out into the big, wide world until there was nothing and no one left at all. Everyone cried. Oikawa waited until he was alone, played the bigger person by putting on a brave face and making a speech that he only half-remembers, and then he cried too. 

And now it’s done- all done, really, really  _ done _ \- and Oikawa has since peeled himself up off the floor and gone home. The afternoon had bumbled on through to night at some point, and now he's pacing in his room and trying to work through the quick, staccato beats of his heart without breaking in two. There’s an intense outpouring of energy coming from somewhere deep inside of him- his stomach, he thinks sardonically, and then it hits again and he doesn’t have the time for jokes- and it’s moving fast and with a vengeance, filling him to the brim and then just sitting there, stagnant and  _ humming.  _ He can’t seem to shut his brain off because the thing is, the thing  _ is _ , Oikawa doesn’t know what to do with himself anymore. Volleyball was an anchor, something that kept him down on earth, and without it holding him back he feels like he’s walking up all 8,453,389,830 of those regulation-size volleyball courts and right into the sun.

The reality of  _ everything  _ is slapping him in the face; this phase of his life is done. There’s no more structure to rely on, no more practice with the team he’s built, no more chances to go to nationals which was important because there are  _ scouts  _ at nationals, and he needed to be scouted to secure the trajectory of his career. Now that that’s dead and done everything feels unmoored and uncertain. He’s not a king or a giant, and he has no place here on earth among droves of people who  _ are. _

And that’s not the best feeling in the world. In fact his fingers and toes are tingling and he’s on the verge of tears and his brain’s throwing him for a loop and that kind of fucking  _ sucks,  _ so when there’s a knock at the door he’s equal parts horrified and relieved. Horrified because he is in no state to be seen right now- his hair has been mussed up with all of his uneasy, repetitive motion and his eyes are bright with unshed tears- and horrified because the noise at the door made him jump and now his insides are twisting again, but relieved because there’s really only one person who would dare to force their way into his life right now. 

And he’d  _ really  _ like to see them.

It takes him several tries to unlock the door (his fingers feel thick and clumsy), but once he’s got it Iwaizumi takes one look at his face and scrunches his brow, heaves a resigned sigh like he knew this was coming, and then waits for Oikawa to step aside before he walks in and situates himself on the bed. He boosts himself up onto the edge and throws the bag he brought with him off to the side, shrugs off his jacket and next and tosses it away too. He’s changed since the game, is now dressed casually in a pair of jeans and a soft-looking t-shirt, and he looks comfortable, if a little sad. Oikawa is still wearing his uniform. He should probably fix that. He can’t find it in himself right now though so he keeps on pacing instead, watching over his shoulder as Iwaizumi pulls his laptop from his bag and opens it up, setting it on the bed and then twisting until he’s lying on his stomach and tapping idly away at the keys.

“I’m going to put on a movie,” he says, talking low and loud and clear. Very carefully, deliberate so that Oikawa can make out the words when his concentration’s as shot as it is. “Whenever you’re ready you can come over and watch too, yeah?”

That’s a rhetorical question, as Oikawa is not exactly in the habit of speaking when it feels like his heart is trying to make an inelegant escape through his throat, but they’re both used enough to this that Iwaizumi knows to watch for other forms of communication. So Oikawa nods, and Iwaizumi hums in recognition and clicks some more at the laptop as Oikawa wanders back and forth from one end of the room to the other, over and over again, trying to see if he can’t burn away some of the adrenaline that’s still racing on through him. It’s a fool’s errand, but he’s been running enough of those lately that he knows the drill; the best that he can do is breathe deep and concentrate and wait it out, wait it out, wait it out.

Iwaizumi has put on a shitty rom-com. That is a painfully predictable choice for him, but he’ll deny it until the day that he dies. The sounds of the opening scenes fill the room, the swell of a romantic string-quartet and the opening monologue from some actress that Oikawa will probably recognize the name of but not the face, and she’s talking about love or her job or love in relation to her job or something. Oikawa has graduated from pacing to jumping up and down in place, and when that doesn’t work he jogs instead; from one end of the room to the other, as the movie plays on, until finally his brain slows down some and he can bring himself to sit down on the bed, tentative just in case he has to spring back up.

Sitting is fine, it seems, so next he lies down. On his stomach next to Iwaizumi, right in front of the laptop. The protagonist of the movie is a journalist, he thinks, or maybe a corporate employee of some sort, and she’s currently engaged in a passionate argument with her boss about a project that she’s working on. Oikawa doesn’t know what exactly has angered her but he has confidence that he’ll figure it out soon, because these movies tend to be very formulaic and he takes great pride in being able to parse patterns wherever he runs across them. So he lies there, kicking his feet against the headboard, and lets himself sink into the mattress with a huff.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Iwaizumi asks once it becomes clear that Oikawa will not be standing up again. 

Oikawa hums noncommittally, shrugging the best that he can when he’s lying down like this. He’s feeling drowsy now, drained of energy, but- against all odds, as things ought to be with him- he  _ would _ like to talk about it. Maybe Iwaizumi can make sense of things; more specifically, maybe he can help  _ Oikawa  _ make sense of things.

“Can you…” he starts first and foremost, gesturing aimlessly because he’s got his priorities and they know each other well enough that Iwaizumi understands what he wants. And understand he does- he grunts and pushes himself up onto his arms, shuffles over and flings first an arm over Oikawa’s back and then a leg so that he’s half-sprawled on top of him. The heat and the weight, the warmth and the slow, steady repetition of his ribs poking into Oikawa’s side when he breathes helps with grounding. Oikawa doesn't much like to be touched when he’s upset or anxious but  _ afterwards _ is another story entirely, as they’ve learned through a very careful mix of trial-and-error and more than a few missteps on both of their parts, so this is a standard practice by now. They’ve got it down to a science.

“Good?” Iwaizumi mumbles into his ear. His breath is warm, presses into the thin bit of skin behind Oikawa’s ear. It tickles. Oikawa shudders, takes a deep breath in and exhales once, situates himself and tries on instinct to prepare himself for something he’s not sure how to prepare for. It’s a bizarre feeling, like he’s acting on a whim that imprinted itself on him long ago and then stuck around for a bit. Invited itself in for dinner, told him to sit up straight and move like this and talk like this and look like this, feel and act and think like this. He’s so  _ sick _ of things, sometimes. 

“We lost,” he says in response. It’s answer enough.

“We did,” Iwaizumi replies, easy as can be. 

“We lost and now everything's  _ ruined _ ,” Oikawa tells him. He pushes his face down into his arms as the movie plays on; the protagonist is now lamenting her lost dream, her past failures, and it all feels a little too on-the-nose for Oikawa so he tunes it out. “I had a plan. We were gonna crush Karasuno and then Shiratorizawa, and we were going to go to nationals and the exposure we got there would be great for everyone, of course, but I was  _ counting  _ on it to help jumpstart my career or at least give it a  _ basis _ , and now-”

“Now you have to reevaluate,” Iwaizumi cuts in. Blunt, as usual, which Oikawa appreciates because if he had to drudge through pretense right now then he’d start screaming. “So things didn’t work out exactly as you planned. They never do. Are you gonna give up, then?”

“What?  _ No! _ ” Oikawa exclaims, making a valiant attempt at rocketing upwards in the dramatic reaction that such an idea deserves but finding himself thwarted by Iwaizumi, who’s still slumped over him and doesn’t seem like he’s getting up anytime soon. “I’ve been working towards this forever! I’m not just going to fucking-  _ give up! _ ”

That’s true. He’s on a trajectory, and even if that trajectory has taken a sharp downwards turn he can’t just  _ stop. _

“Then you’re gonna have to find another way. Maybe not even a harder way, just… a different one,” Iwaizumi says, and sure when he puts it like  _ that  _ it sounds easy, but- well, life’s never been that simple before and Oikawa doesn’t think it’s going to start now. It’s nice to think like that, and it’s nice to imagine that all he really needs to do is revisit the situation from another angle but-

“But what if that was my  _ one  _ chance? Like, there has to be a point where something just  _ gives _ , or one where the universe decides that you’ve had too many chances or too many good things and then cuts you off in some sort of demented cosmic power play because you’re throwing off the natural balance or something. And I have a  _ lot _ of good things in my life, Iwa-chan, too many good things and it makes me nervous sometimes because it feels like playing with fire, because a lot of good things is a lot of things to lose, right? And the other day I realized that I didn’t have enough change on me to get something from the vending machine and then I got an seventy-five on my last math test- don’t say a  _ word _ \- and I fucked up when talking to a girl from my class because it was eight in the morning and I wasn’t awake and I didn’t hear her talking to me, and now we  _ lost  _ and we can’t go to nationals and I think we’re at the beginning of the end. The universe has decided that it’s had enough of me and I’m going to die here without doing anything worthwhile or even anything that I  _ like. _ ”

Iwaizumi does not look impressed by his speech; his mouth is pressed into a straight line and he’s side-eyeing him like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do, like he’s vibrating from the effort of not telling him that he’s a fucking  _ idiot  _ because that’s counterproductive at the moment. Well that’s his problem- Oikawa’s chest is heaving and his brain’s running through a thousand different scenarios all over again, much faster than any brain should, so he thinks that it was a very  _ effective  _ speech, thank you. It hit on all the good points, all the right ones, all the ones that push his buttons and then stir themselves up into a much bigger problem than they deserve to be. 

“That’s not right at  _ all,  _ what the  _ fuck _ ,” Iwaizumi finally settles on, the words coming out a little too loudly in all his indignation. He twists his head down and around so he can look Oikawa in the eye. In the light from the laptop his face is a ghostly blue-green. “It doesn’t work like that. Things don’t just stop or whatever after today just because we lost. It doesn’t work like that. There’s not a fucking… expiration date or definite last chance or whatever other dumb thing it is that you’re thinking. That doesn’t make  _ sense,  _ Tooru-“ and the shock of that, of  _ Tooru _ is enough to make Oikawa’s head snap towards Iwaizumi, who is no longer looking at him, “-that doesn’t make sense. Think it through. We lost. We didn’t make it to nationals, so what’s next?”

“I die alone and unhappy in a ditch somewhere,” Oikawa tells him, and that seems right enough so he leaves it at that.

“Worst-case scenario,” Iwaizumi replies immediately, flicking his shoulder. “We’ll come back to that. Scale it down a bit. Realistically, what happens next?”

Oikawa heaves a sigh, pushes his face into the comforter. What happens next? If there isn’t a definite cutoff, if through some small miracle- or no miracle at all, but rather applied effort and he doesn’t like that at  _ all,  _ they should go back to the miracles- he were to move on from this, where would he go? What would he do? What does he  _ want  _ to do, and how does he want to do it?

“I talk to coach,” he mumbles, voice muffled. Iwaizumi gives him an encouraging pat on the back so he carries on, concentrating as hard as he can until his speech gains some traction, some conviction. “I talk to coach, because even if we didn’t make it to nationals, Seijoh’s well established in the prefecture, and that’s not  _ as _ good a platform, but it’s something at least. So I talk to coach, pool my resources, come up with a new plan.”

“One that works with where we’re at now,” Iwaizumi adds. His hand is running along Oikawa’s back, up and down along the spine. 

“One that works with where we’re out now,” Oikawa agrees. “And then for right now, like  _ tonight _ right now-“ he stops and scrunches up his nose, groans and kicks his heels against the headboard. He listens to the hollow thump of the wood and tries not to think about how frustrating everything is. “I don’t think there’s anything else I can do right now. This is so fucking  _ stupid,  _ Iwa-chan. I’m  _ tired.  _ Trying to make plans for the future when I’m tired is fucking  _ stupid _ .”   
  


Iwaizumi snorts, kneading his knuckle into the dip between Oikawa’s neck and his shoulder and making him yelp. He pushes him off and bristles, hair standing on end as Iwaizumi bursts into laughter. It’s a good laugh, one of the ones that Oikawa tries to pry out of him on the daily, one of the ones that comes from the stomach and makes his eyes crinkle and makes Oikawa feel warm all over. 

“It really fucking is,” Iwaizumi says through the little hitches and bumps in his breathing, voice cutting through delighted rush that’s taking the place of the harsher buzzing up in Oikawa’s head. He smiles down at him, pokes at his arm. “It really fucking is. So let’s just go to sleep for now, okay? We can figure more out in the morning.”

“Cop-out,” Oikawa huffs, because that’s the same thing as saying  _ try turning it off and then turning it back on again _ , the same thing as saying  _ let the pan soak in the sink overnight _ , the same thing as saying  _ time heals all wounds _ or  _ only time will tell _ . Oikawa doesn’t like leaving things to their own devices, even if that’s the best course of action. Oikawa is active to a fault. 

“Maybe, but you’re exhausted.  _ I’m  _ exhausted. And you’ve got a plan anyways, so I think that we can go to sleep. I think we’ve earned it _ , _ ” Iwaizumi tells him, only half-joking as his laughter dwindles down. He looks at him, serious again, and something in Oikawa’s stomach squirms and flops around. “Really, Shittykawa. We’ve done enough for now, alright? Even if it doesn’t feel like it, which would be fucking stupid because today was really fucking  _ long  _ and it  _ should  _ feel like it.”

“Rude,” Oikawa murmurs.

“But I’m right,” Iwaizumi insists, and Oikawa has nothing to say to that so instead he scoffs in quiet indignation, wriggles back under Iwaizumi and trains his eyes onto the computer screen where the protagonist has just met up with her love interest for the very first time. 

All in all, their conversation’s served its purpose. It’s done the trick. He’s calmed down enough that he can sit, that he can lie down and breathe and not feel like he’s going to bite his own head off if given ample opportunity or any opportunity at all. So he gives Iwaizumi a smile, as sweet a smile that he can manage, and then he jabs him in the arm as revenge for earlier and that is significantly  _ less  _ sweet but it does a good job of calming him down even more. Familiarity, safety, security. That's usually what it takes, and that’s what he’s got so he lets himself sink into the mattress and think- even if just for a moment- that things are going to be okay. 

His world’s been snapped back into perspective, and he’s done enough for today, so he does nothing more but sit on his stomach and breathe in and out and watch the movie, which is just as predictable as he thought it would be. Iwaizumi is predictable too, and all the better for it; he falls asleep as quickly as he’s always been able to, and the familiarity of that gives Oikawa something to focus on. Oikawa’s never had that sort of ease with  _ anything _ \- nothing comes naturally to him, he’s built from the ground up- but he’s dead tired at the moment so he presses his back up against Iwaizumi’s and shuts his eyes, slows his breathing down until he’s hardly breathing at all and lets the sounds of the movie fill up his head until there’s nothing left of his earlier fears. 

_ It’ll be alright,  _ he chants to himself as his limbs go heavy, as his mind shuts down, as his heart goes slow and soft and his stomach lays itself to rest.  _ It’ll be alright. You’ll figure it out. You’ll make a plan. It’ll be alright.  _

And with that, he slips into sleep. 

**Author's Note:**

> Please consider leaving a comment if you enjoyed!! I love hearing from you guys!!
> 
> I wrote this in like two days because I really wanted to get something out for Oikawa’s birthday, and while I’m years late for this particular brand of fic I wanted to give it a shot. I'm also always down for a bit of blatant projection so like… happy birthday buddy, I guess. I’m regifting my recent existential crisis, but with prettier words and 100% more volleyball


End file.
